Some people, upon hearing cycling and transportation activists talk about new road designs or different infrastructure funding priorities, respond with statements like, “but not everyone can bike” or “some of us need our cars.” What’s lost in these debates is that even a relatively small shift in how we get around, Oregonians — and the state of Oregon itself — could see major positive impacts.
As part of their preparation to build a 2025 transportation funding package, the Oregon Legislature is hosting meetings to educate lawmakers and hear input from experts (I mentioned these workgroups in my previous post about the budget). In a November 20th meeting of one of these workgroups, Miguel Moravec from the Rocky Mountain Institute shared a presentation about how Oregon would benefit from a shift in mode choice.
RMI is a nonprofit think tank that started during the oil crisis of the 1970s and now provides research and analysis “to advance the clean energy transition.” You might have heard about their widely-used induced demand calculator tool, which is used by The Street Trust in their candidate training program. Moravec brought a different tool to the legislative working group: something RMI calls their “smarter modes calculator.” Using that calculator across a 2024-2050 timeframe, Moravec based his presentation around what would happen if Oregon was able to shift just 20% of its current driving miles to other modes like walking, cycling, or transit.
According to Moravec, if Oregon residents shifted just one out of every five auto trips to a non-driving mode, every household would save $1,457. “This is a literal stimulus check-sized boost,” Moravec said. (Or about $500 larger than the size of an average “Oregon kicker” rebate.) RMI’s household savings number is based on the fact that the average cost to own and maintain a car in the U.S. is about $12,000 per year and the average Oregon household owns two cars.
Other benefits of a 20% vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction would include: 488 fewer deaths per year due to improved air quality and more physical activity, and a reduction in crashes that would save 67 lives and prevent over 1,000 injuries per year. If that’s not enough to sweeten the deal, a 20% shift would prevent 25 metric tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. There’s a cost to road crashes too, and RMI’s calculator reveals that Oregon would save $35 billion just by putting down their car keys and lowering road exposure time.
There would be other livability and urban planning benefits as well. Moravec used a case study of Arlington, Virginia, to show how when city planners made non-driving modes more attractive, they also boosted the local economy. “Clean transportation choices in Oregon can stimulate Main Street economic activity, and it’s a virtuous cycle because as residents’ need to drive decreased, the area became more desirable to live.” More human-centric places create a stronger tax base for local governments, Moravec shared, a benefit that is amplified when fewer car trips lead to savings on road maintenance costs.
To unlock all these benefits, Moravec said lawmakers cannot just hope people change behaviors on their own. The legislature must support and implement laws and programs that entice fewer car trips. What type of policies do this? His presentation pointed to congestion pricing in New York City, as well as a state payroll tax and casino tax. In New Jersey, lawmakers have passed a tax on corporate incomes to fund transit. Colorado and Minnesota have a fee on home deliveries from the likes of Amazon to fund transportation options, and Minnesota is expected to raise $700 million a year from a combination of regional sales taxes.
Keep in mind this presentation was being heard by a very influential and powerful group of lawmakers, advocacy leaders, and ODOT staff that included: Co-chairs of the Oregon Legislature Joint Committee on Transportation Senator Chris Gorsek and Rep. Susan McLain, Oregon Transportation Commission Chair Julie Brown, and many others.
Rep. McLain expressed interest in the home delivery fee and Rep. Kevin Mannix wanted to know more about the funding package passed in Minnesota.
This was just one of many presentations that has been shared with lawmakers in recent weeks and months. I’ve been impressed with the amount of information and feedback that’s being processed during these workgroup meetings and can’t wait to see what type of proposals end up on the table once the legislative session begins next month.
Thanks for reading.
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This sounds pretty easy; just get people to switch 20% of their miles driven to bikes and transit. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
I wish someone would think about what it would actually take, specifically, to make this happen, and present a plan along with a realistic estimate of costs.
I hear you Watts. That’s what I hope this is leading too. The folks in this working group are literally right now putting proposals on paper that will create new funding and new priorities for Oregon transportation that will get folks to shift away from cars. Obviously it’s a wait and see, but your call for some action is what is happening right now.
People have been trying to accomplish this in one guise or another for many decades. Funding is not really the problem; a lack of actionable and effective ideas that are politically palatable is the problem.
Not sure I understand what you’re trying to express Watts. I guess I’m curious what you consider, “actionable and effective ideas that are politically palatable.” Are you talking about good projects? Or good revenue streams?
I’m talking about the lack of specific plans that are actually implementable that would reduce VMT by 20% statewide. Finding funding is the easy part; finding ideas that would work in the real world (which includes passing political muster) is what’s hard.
I’m guessing that if someone said “here’s a credible and politically palatable plan that would reduce VMT across the state by 20%, and it would cost $200M per year,” we’d find the money.
OK thanks. I think one thing to keep in mind is pricing pressures. As driving becomes more expensive, people will do it less. That’s a key problem in America. Driving is waaaay to cheap. Anything we do in Oregon in the 2025 session will result in making driving more expensive… and we need leaders who can convince voters that that’s a very good thing! And one result of that price pressure is that a percentage of people will begin to drive less… maybe not 20% less but that’s a nice goal!
That remains to be seen. Any significant increase in the cost of driving will be politically painful for many representatives, especially in suburban and rural areas. Queue the equity concerns.
Indeed, we do. Know any?
with a Dem supermajority, if Oregon fails to deliver a transpo package this session it will be a failure on par with the Dems failure in the national election last month IMO.
I went to an all-day conference in September in which RMI also presented the same ideas but with NC data, and the same questions Watts has, came up – repeatedly – and the same lame answers. Most of the audience were Dems in a state that Republicans have a near supermajority – everyone was confident that Harris would win and magically push our state to a Dems majority – but even then everyone agreed that it is super hard to move 20% of present trips out of cars when well over 70% of state residents have no access to public transit or any sort of safe bike or walk infrastructure.
Even in places you do have good access to such infrastructure, such as in Portland, it is proving quite difficult to meaningfully move the needle.
There are some people who have a strong faith that it is possible, but they have difficulty saying how, exactly, it could be done. I have nothing against religion, of course, but it’s not a good basis for effective policy, especially when most people are non-believers.
You’re thinking about it the wrong way. There’s really nothing stopping anyone from biking to the store right now.
The problem is that we have made driving a car so darned easy, convenient, comfortable, and safe that no one wants to do anything but drive a car. Cycling simply can’t compete with these aspects of driving a car, so we need something else, like a gov’t mandate to drive less, Maybe *that* is what Watts is referring to?
The irony is that we need almost NOTHING to improve mode share, except for the will of The People to make it happen.
You’re right! And yet, for some reason, people aren’t doing this en masse. As you say, people like their other choices better (even riding transit).
Again, absolutely true! Anyone who wants change can have it, today. What’s harder is imposing that change on others who don’t want it.
PS What would a “mandate to drive less” look like, and how would we make it politically salable in Oregon?
Maybe something like the Covid lockdowns? Declare a public emergency, on Wednesday everyone who has an odd-numbered license plate will be banned from driving, with $1,457 minimum penalties, on Thursday the even-numbered plates will be banned? When Paris has air pollution emergencies I hear they do something similar.
I know what it looks like: I don’t use my car for ANY in-town trips that I can bike to. So my mode share is something like 80% bike, 20% car.
If we could get half of people to do just their in-town trips by bike, we’d shift mode-share radically.
Easy! Grow our urban bike mode share from 3% to 50%. Sounds totally doable.
(Also, it’s not the number of trips, but the miles traveled (the MT in VMT), so one long trip across the state could easily blow your percentages if most of your city trips are short).
In sum, by arguing that nothing will change, positions will always be supported by established superficial observations, will not contribute anything creative and therefore will assume the least possible risk.
Portland and Arlington, VA/Washington D.C. are entirely different animals. Arlington benefits by being a compact city with well-planed commercial centers, frequent transit, expanded transit hours, and a significant amount of transit overlap with Metro. Whenever I go there, I never rent a car because I can get anywhere with relative ease on mass transit that is easily demonstrated as more efficient and less expensive than car driving. Final mile or getting to a further flung residential zone in poor weather – Uber/Lyft for a few bucks. Most importantly, there is visible security and you can’t get to a train or on a bus without proof of payment. If I lived in that area, I wouldn’t own a vehicle because the system is that good!
We’ve got…Tri-Met.
Our fundamental issue is that our transit is not particularly convenient nor is rider comfort/safety a given. There is little commerce along the MAX lines and what is there is plagued with crime, encampments, and feels unsafe. The virtually empty Lloyd Center area is a perfect example of what’s wrong. You can hector people all you like about the environment. You can promote less pedestrian deaths. You can call it, “The right thing to do!”. None of that matters if people feel unsafe or a car trip is faster, more comfortable, and perceived to be safer than riding transit, walking, or hopping on your bike.
To get a 20% reduction in car trips, then you have to make the alternatives far more attractive. That goes beyond any broad funding plans, tolls, congestion pricing, etc. People will use alternatives but the alternative better be very good.
I bet the money-saving stats would be similar if people just swapped their large SUVs and pickups for smaller commuter cars.
I recently took the MAX from Beaverton to NE Portland, instead of driving. It took a little over an hour, which is ~20-30 minutes more than driving. It was nice to just sit on the train and read, and I didn’t have any issues on board. If the MAX was reliably clean and safe, I think more people would get on board, myself included. I used to work downtown, and could bike or MAX in a similar amount of time. After a few too many “experiences” on the MAX downtown, I wasn’t too keen on riding it if I didn’t have to. I just noticed that Trimet is installing big red security phones at stations. More of those types of proactive safety improvements would help a lot with peoples’ perceptions of transit.